In mold manufacturing, forging and casting are the most commonly used manufacturing processes, but there are still often people who confuse these two manufacturing processes, thinking that forging and casting are the same, a manufacturing process, but there are two names. In fact, forging and casting are two completely different manufacturing processes, so what are the differences between them? Today, Xianji.com Xiaobian will introduce the difference between forging and casting, the basic process and process flow of forging, for everyone to understand, let's take a look quickly!

What does forging mean?

Forging is a processing method that uses forging machinery to apply pressure to metal blanks to produce plastic deformation to obtain forgings with certain mechanical properties, certain shapes and sizes, and is one of the two major components of forging.

Through forging, the loose casting and welding holes of the metal can be eliminated, and the mechanical properties of forgings are generally better than castings of the same material. For important parts with high load and severe working conditions in machinery, forgings are mostly used except for plates, profiles or weldments that can be rolled with simple shapes.

Forging Classification:

1. According to the forming method

(1) Open forging (free forging)

The impact force or pressure is used to deform the metal between the upper and lower two iron (anvils) to obtain the required forgings, mainly manual forging and mechanical forging.

(2) Closed mode forging

The metal blank is deformed by compression in the forging die bore with a certain shape to obtain forgings, which can be divided into die forging, cold heading and rotary forging, extrusion, etc.

2. According to the deformation temperature

Forging can be divided into hot forging (processing temperature higher than the recrystallization temperature of billet metal), warm forging (lower than recrystallization temperature) and cold forging (room temperature).

3. According to the forming mechanism

Forging can be divided into free forging, die forging, ring milling, and special forging.

(1) Free forging

It refers to the processing method of using simple universal tools or directly applying external force to the blank between the upper and lower anvil irons of the forging equipment to deform the blank to obtain the required geometry and internal quality. Forgings produced by the free forging method are called free forgings. Free forging is mainly based on the production of forgings with small batches, and forging equipment such as forging hammers and hydraulic presses are used to form blanks to obtain qualified forgings. The basic processes of free forging include upsetting, lengthening, punching, cutting, bending, twisting, shifting and forging. Free forging adopts the hot forging method.

 (2) Die forging

Die forging is divided into open die forging and closed die forging. The metal blank is deformed by pressure in the forging die bore with a certain shape to obtain forgings, and die forging is generally used to produce parts with small weight and large batches.

Die forging can be divided into hot die forging, warm forging and cold forging. Temperature forging and cold forging are the future development direction of die forging, and also represent the level of forging technology.

According to the material, die forging can also be divided into ferrous metal die forging, non-ferrous metal die forging and powder product forming. As the name implies, the materials are ferrous metals such as carbon steel, non-ferrous metals such as copper and aluminum and powder metallurgy materials.

Extrusion should be attributed to die forging, which can be divided into heavy metal extrusion and light metal extrusion.

Closed die forging and closed upsetting are two advanced processes of die forging, and the utilization rate of materials is high due to the absence of flashing. The finishing of complex forgings can be completed in one or several processes. Since there is no flashing, the force area of the forgings is reduced and the required load is reduced. However, it should be noted that the blank cannot be completely restricted, so it is necessary to strictly control the volume of the blank, control the relative position of the forging die and measure the forging, and strive to reduce the wear of the forging die.

(3) Rolling ring

Ring rolling refers to the production of ring parts of different diameters by special equipment ring rolling machine, and is also used to produce wheel parts such as automobile wheels and train wheels.

(4) Special forging

Special forging includes roll forging, wedge cross-rolling, radial forging, liquid die forging and other forging methods, which are more suitable for the production of certain special shape parts.

Difference between forging and casting:

The difference between forging and casting is mainly reflected in two aspects, processing technology and use.